I actually laid on the floor playing with Hogan for about 30 minutes after reading your post
Funny you should mention that. Yesterday I walked over to a friend's house to give him some paperwork. He had offered to come to our house to pick it up but I told him I needed the exercise. He has two beagles and a small dust mop kinda dog. All three were all over me when I walked in and he accused me of coming to his house so I could get some dog time. Little does he know how close to the truth he was.
Very sorry for your loss. I once had 4 dogs so I can empathize. Any we had to recently put down my GFs cat after a quick onset of cancer. He was your buddy. 100% unselfish love.View attachment 136875
This is Sailor in a photo taken about 2 months ago. Sailor adopted us about 3.5 years ago, shortly before I found out I have cancer. He came into our lives at a time when, though I didn't know it yet, he would become my therapy dog and a constant companion.
We never knew how old he was because we didn't know his background. When he "adopted" us he was a skinny 65-pound dog whose pads were all red and raw from being on the run. At that time the vet guessed his age at 11.
He became my constant companion and was not usually more than 6' from me. Over the past few months his hips began to fail, making it difficult for him to get up. That didn't stop him though from waking me up every morning about 6:20 a.m. to go for our walk down along the Columbia River. Our walks got shorter and shorter as it became more difficult for him to make it back up the gentle slope to the house.
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Monday evening he was in the front yard and failed when he tried to get up to come back in the house. His barks were pleas for help and I knew there was nothing I could do to help. I called our vet and they agreed to send out two lab techs to put him to sleep.
In the 20 minutes or so it took them to get to the house I was able to lie on the grass with him and comfort him. It helped calm both of us. The two techs arrived, administered the drugs to put him to sleep and I helped them load him into their SUV.
Today is the first day I haven't really teared up when thinking about Sailor. I'll miss his 6:20 a.m. wake up call, his 6:30 p.m. "let's go get the mail" barks and his 8:45 "time to go to bed" barks. There's a lot I will miss about Sailor; too much to list here, but he knows I'm missing him. He's too intuitive not to notice.
I later learned he was not 4,rather 11. Ugh. I had to put him down 2 years ago after a long bout with cancer as well. I tube fed him for months. He is 14, I let him out during the day, watch him on weekends sometimes. I call him "grandpa". He is getting old, fast, and I dread that day.
As much as I would love to have another boat, that's not in the cards. The cancer has pretty much f'd my balance to a point where I'm not stable enough to be safely on deck. This is the first time in many, many years where I've been without a boat and without a dog in my life. Sucks.
That's very cool. We have Angus' ashes in a wooden urn our china cupboard.
